Oozing hot beef mince in homemade gravy encased in golden flaky pastry, that’s what our mouthwatering Aussie beef pie is all about!

Happy Australia Day!

On the 26 of January of every year, I reflect on what it means to be Australian. This year, I had to think back to last year.

No doubt that 2020 was a terrible year for everyone around the world. Australia was fortunate enough to handle the Covid situation well, but we were also devastated by the terrible bushfires. At the beginning of 2020, the raging fires burnt down houses and killed people, millions of our native animals were also killed.

So taking the above events into account, this is what it means to be Australian this year to me:

Aussies are resilient, we stick together and do the best we can when times are tough and challenging. We’re compassionate and are always willing to give a hand for those that are less fortunate than us.

Happy Australia day!

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Aussie meat or beef pie?

When I was taking photos for this post, I was thinking to remove all the crumbs and gravy spots that stained the white plate. Then I thought, what for? because Aussie pies aren’t supposed to be eaten neatly, we adore our messy pies. Flaky pastry and oozing gravy beef, who cares about the mess right? So I left my photo true to form!

Australian call our beloved classic pies ‘meat pies’ not beef pies. I called them beef pies because I think it’s good to know what you’re eating!

Aussies love our pies simple and tasty, no fancy ingredients just meat and gravy. Of course, there are other ingredients involved but meat and gravy are all you’ll see when you bite into them.

To be honest, I prefer my beef pies to have chunky tender beef but that’s for another time. If we were to do chunky this would add a few more hours of cooking time.

Not to worry though, as this pie ain’t no average Joe, it’s ‘pretty bloody awesome’! We are generously going to fill our pies with savoury and saucy beef mince and close it off in a delicious pastry casing. The pastry is just right, it’s not too thin or thick but it’s strong enough to hold and eat in your hand. BUT be careful to not burn your mouth with the hot yummy filling!

Yes, you can!

Go on, you can breathe a sigh of relief because I am not asking you to join a cult. I’m simply saying that yes, you can make this pie successfully!

Truthfully, this beef pie is not as easy as most of my other recipes on here. I said the same thing in my LAMINGTON CAKE post too! Haha, we Aussies must love to cook some finicky stuff.

But before you close this browser and leave, I promise you, this pie is definitely ‘doable’. This is coming from me, a mum that has a crazy, needy but darn cute toddler running circles around me in the kitchen. I still managed to get these pies done, so I’m positive you’ll nail it too!!!

If you haven’t made pies before, this would be an ideal recipe as making the filling is quite easy. We are also using frozen prerolled pastries to make our life simple.

The only semi-hard part is working with the pastry but like always I have my step by step guide and photos to assist you all the way.

You’ll need some equipment handy to prepare the pastry:

Pie baking tins – You’ll need 6 x 10cm (4 in) round nonstick pie tins.

I used fancy white porcelain baking dishes this time around. Wrong decision! the pastry got stuck to the dish and I couldn’t remove it. If it wasn’t for this post I would have just served it in the dish but I wanted to show you the pie in its entirety so I had to blind bake my pastry twice! So, as you can imagine there were lots of silent swearing happening. If you want to be able to remove your pie, use nonstick pie tins!

You can also use nonstick ‘Texas muffin baking trays’ but they’ll yield smaller pies, so you’ll have leftover filling to make 1 or 2 additional pies.

Baking beans are round weights that are a bit bigger than the size of a pea, it’s usually made from ceramic. Beans are used to blind bake raw pastry to prevent it from shrinking and puffing whilst baking. If you don’t have baking beans, you can use dried beans or dried rice.

Nonstick baking paper, also known as parchment paper. Large square pieces of baking paper are needed to cover the raw pastry (pie base) before adding in the baking beans. Once the pastries are done, lifting the paper will effectively remove the hot beans from the pastry.

Random circle objects – You’ll need two items to use to trace and cut circles with on the pastry. that you can trace a circle and cut the pastry with. For the base of the pie, you’ll need a diameter of 15cm (6in) and for 13cm (5in) for the top. I used bowls, other ideal objects are small plates or small saucepan lids. You could even get creative and use a compass, by drawing a circle on a paper, cut it out and use it as a guide!

Ingredients for Aussie beef pie

For the pie filling:

Beef mince (Ground beef) – I prefer to use lean beef as I find regular beef secrete too much oil when cooked. If you wish to use regular beef, lessen the oil to just 1 teaspoon.

Plain flour is also known as ‘all-purpose’ flour, it has no leavening agent added. You may need more or less flour depending on the desired thickness of the filling.

Red wine – Use dry red wine as it’s less sweet and won’t overwhelm the pie with its flavour.

Oil – Any neutral-tasting oil can be used such as vegetable, canola, or rice bran oil.

For the pie pastry base and lid:

Frozen shortcrust pastry sheet – These pastries are frozen and have been prerolled in squares of 25cm (10in). The shortcrust pastry will be for the base of the pie but if preferred you can use puff pastry for the base and top of the pie. Defrost the pastry as per the package instructions.

Frozen Puff pastry sheet – These pastries are frozen and have been prerolled in squares of 25cm (10in). The puff pastry will be for the top (lids) of the pies. Defrost the pastry as per the package instructions.

How to make Aussie beef pie

Step by step guide with photos

Make the beef filling:

Use a food processor to pulse the garlic and onions together until finely chopped.

Heat up the oil in a pot on high heat, add in the beef and stir until it has browned. Add in the onions and garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Pour in the wine, cook and stir regularly until the alcohol smell dissipates.

Lower the heat to medium-low, add in the tomato paste, tomato sauce, stock, Worcestershire, pepper and let simmer gently for 10 minutes stirring once in a while.

Sprinkle a spoonful of flour on top of the filling and stir to thicken. Repeat this process until you reach the desired thickness of the filling, you may need more or less flour. Keep in mind that when the pie is cooking in the oven, it’ll thicken a little bit more. Let simmer gently for 5 minutes, taste the filling and add salt to your taste, set aside to cool.

Blind bake the pastry:

Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F) or 180°C (360°F) for fan-forced ovens.

For the base of the pies cut 6 x 15cm diameter circles from the shortcrust pastry.

Carefully place each pastry circle inside the pie tin, gently guide the pastry inside the tin but try not to pull or stretch the pastry as this may thin out the pastry and make it uneven.

Cut 6 large nonstick baking paper squares and carefully insert them on top of each pastry. Carefully put the beads in the pastry and blind bake for 20 minutes. Take the beads out using the baking paper to lift them and bake the base for a further 10 minutes.

Fill in the pies and close the lids

Increase the oven temperature to 220°C (430°F) or 200°C (390°F) for fan-forced ovens.

Generously fill in each pie with the filling but do not overfill. Cut 6 x 13cm (5in) circles from the puff pastry. Place the pastry over each pie and gently press on the edges to seal the pie. Brush the top of the pastry with egg wash and pierce the centre of the pie with a fork. Bake the pies for 30 minutes or until the pastries are golden and flaky.

Leftover pies can be stored in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 4 days and can be frozen up to 2 months.

Cooking measurements are in Australian standard spoon and cup measurements.

A Third-Party Application calculated the calories and nutritional information. Please use this as an approximate guide only.

I would love to hear your thoughts or feedback on this post. If you have made this recipe, please show your support by commenting and rate this recipe. You can do this by scrolling down or by clicking the green circle on the left. To prevent spam on this site, your email address is required but it will not be published.

Cheers (I’ll drink to that) – Cat Tre